The present invention relates to a motor vehicle with several active or passive safety devices.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
Modern motor vehicles have safety devices which come in various designs and may be of active or passive nature. Examples include safety belts to restrain occupants in their seat in the event of a collision. The safety belts can have belt retractors with associated sensors to further tighten the belt in the event of a crash, using for example pyrotechnic mechanisms which are then activated. Other examples include airbags which can be installed at various locations in the motor vehicle and are deployed in the event of a crash in order to protect body parts of an occupant, or safety devices in the form of driver assist systems which process information generated by sensors that monitor the surroundings of the vehicle. Such safety devices may include collision warning systems which use radar sensors to detect the presence of an impending collision and generate respective signals or trigger an automatic reaction, or systems which monitor the surroundings behind the vehicle and generate a signal in the event the vehicle changes the lane despite approaching traffic from behind. All these systems use various sensors, including also seat occupancy sensors which detect whether a seat is occupied so as to deploy the airbag associated to this seat, when a person is seated in this seat, or a system which monitors the driver, for example typically via a camera, and processes the images to ascertain a possible driver fatigue which, when detected, causes the system to trigger a warning signal to alert the driver.
Various safety devices in particular driver assist systems can be rendered operational by the driver. This is so because not always and not every driver wishes a continuous operation of a driver assist system. Other safety devices, such as safety belts, including belt retractor, and airbags are oftentimes operational, i.e. they are activated automatically when the vehicle is started. A driver is however not in a position to recognize when a safety device, in particular an automatically activated safety device such as safety belt and airbag, is activated. In other words, the driver has to rely that the respective safety system is indeed activated automatically or in a state that ensures its function in case of need.
It would be desirable and advantageous to provide an improved motor vehicle to obviate prior art shortcomings and to enable the driver to recognize an active system state.